ACIM Urtext

bySean

Reading the ACIM Urtext . . .

There is considerable debate in the ACIM community about which version of the text and workbook students should use. While the overarching conflict is not so important, the version that you choose does in fact matter largely because you want to be sure that you are using one that works for you.

(You might want to take a look at Robert Perry’s (from the Circle of Atonement) thoughts on the editing of A Course in Miracles – it’s thorough and relatively balanced).

We all know the outline, right? Basically, Helen Schucman channeled the voice of Jesus, wrote it down in shorthand and dictated it to Bill Thetford who typed it up. There were several subsequent edits in the years that followed. Other people got involved in the editing and publishing – Kenneth Wapnick, Judith Skutch. Organizations sprung up with their own thoughts and ideas about the text. There was a lawsuit.

Long story short? There are now at least three apparently different texts available to students.

I say “apparently different” because in my experience they are not substantially unchanged from one another. The message – that the world is projection of fear and guilt and anger, that a change of mind is possible by enlisting Jesus’ help, and that we can experience the Kingdom of Heaven – is the same throughout. From this vantage point, it really doesn’t matter what version of A Course in Miracles you choose. They are all going to deliver you to the same place, or at least have the potential to do that.

Also, most Course students have the experience at one point or another of realizing that they have to go beyond the text and workbook. These too are symbols of the separation and although they point the way back to God, they are not substitutes for God. The last lessons of the ACIM workbook make clear that they are “as free of words as possible” in order that we might “seek to go beyond them.”

The Urtext is the first typewritten draft – it reflects what Helen Schucman dictated to Thetford. It is private (one of the reasons that Ken Wapnick encourages students not to read it) and was not (according to Wapnick and other early ACIM practitioners) intended for publication in that state. And indeed, reading it does give one the sense that you are peeking into a very private, very personal meeting between Jesus, Helen and Bill.

If you are going to steer clear of the urtext – or feel called to steer clear of it – that’s probably the best reason. It simply wasn’t intended to be released that way. Jesus was clear that it would become public but only after it had been edited (by whom is another hotly debated question). Both Helen and Bill seemed to feel – at least according to material that I’ve read (summarized, in an admittedly one-sided way here) – that it was going to be revised before going public.

Yet for all of that, it does have its benefits. For one thing, as Robert Perry has correctly pointed out, it abounds in specifics. If you are curious about the meaning of a particularly abstract phrase or idea, chances are the Urtext has some examples or additional language that will help clarify it. This is especially true of the early chapters, which were the ones most subject to revision (a lot of that material was eventually excised, reordered or rewritten).

Some of the Miracles Urtext is confusing – or a little too intimate. It talks, for example, about sex and encourages miracle workers to get this right. Seeing the body as a means for pleasure in any way is to indulge the ego – unless we can fix the underlying error (that bodies are real and thus sources of anything) then spiritual sight will remain impossible. While this brings up some details about the sex lives of Helen and Bill (which decency does make one feel a bit like we’re violating their privacy) it’s an interesting and important concept. Like eating, sex is one use of the body that few of us want to compromise or surrender. The traditional text is unhelpfully silent on this question.

The other issue that one has to consider when reading the Urtext is the degree to which Jesus needs any editing. If the voice that Helen heard was Jesus of Nazareth, then why make any alterations? Reasonable people can certainly ask why the ACIM urtext was edited. Why did Wapnick step in and edit it? It’s true that those typewritten notes indicate that some material needs to be removed because it’s intended solely for Helen and Bill, but that’s actually a pretty small percentage. What about the rest? I think this is what motivates a lot of Ken Wapnick’s critics, the sense that he stepped and started editing Jesus Christ.

But if you are close to that material, then you are less likely to challenge the need to edit it – which is a separate question from the quality of the actual editing. The early chapters of the first edition are sort of . . . clumsy. It’s true there are some real gems tucked in there – notably around sex – but by and large it reads like a first draft. Whatever channel Helen was using to be in contact with Jesus, it was a bit clogged up. And so you get the wisdom but it’s compromised. In this sense – over and above the personal material – some editing was called for. Whether Mr. Wapnick did a good job . . . well, as I am already on record saying: you need to make that call for yourself. I personally think he did the best he could – I doubt I could have done better – and when I start making more of the issue, I’m indulging the ego and using the history of the writing and editing to keep me from the healing the text offers.

In other words, I don’t think it doesn’t really matter which edition of A Course in Miracles that you choose. Or rather, I want to say that it’s not possible to pick the wrong one (the other option – the so-called Hugh Lyn Cayce version I’ll discuss another time). I still rely primarily on the traditional text – it was the first edition I read and studied and feels like the cornerstone to me. Yet my understanding of the Course has been undeniably enhanced by reviewing the earlier versions. Pick one that works for you and then stick to it. Even Mr. Wapnick noted in his defense of the traditional text that we should never feel guilty for reading a different version.

As I said at the outset, our focus is on love – on transforming the world and ourselves in relation with Jesus. What helps you get there, helps you get there. Read, listen and love.

From my understanding, Wapnick didn’t edit the UrText. It was the HLC version that was further edited at Wapnick’s insistance.

In the UrText, the author says that Bill should be in charge of the editing process, due to Helen’s bad habit of over-editing in general. The result is the HLC version.

Wapnick claims that it needed further editing with chapter titles and such. Yet, this is not accurate. Soul was removed, except in a couple of instances, passages were re-worded, etc.

While I am grateful to have found the FIP version and have a couple of copies of it along with the entire combined volume on my iPod, compared to the HLC version, the FIP version feels over edited and cold and clinical in comparison. There is a warmer feel to the HLC version in my opinion.

The claim that it is substantially unchanged I don’t think is accurate. Sure, we may be able to look at the over all message and say this, but the claim that only some of the more personal information is removed and some chapter titles and sections put in as the changes that were made is completely inaccurate.

I have a policy here of not deleting posts (long story having to do with being honest and so forth), but if I did not have that policy, and was inclined to delete posts, this one would be amongst thefirst to go.

I’d like to make a couple of general points in response to ou with the up front caveat that I can’t really go down this particular rabbit hole anymore. For me it has just stopped being helpful in any way and seems to distract way too many of us.

1. I truly want people to use whatever version speaks most clearly and resonantly. I don’t especially care what that is, though like all students I have an opinion about what is best for me.

2. There is some disagreement and confusion about what the ur-text actually is. I think you are more right than not when you say Wapnick did not edit it; but I also think the lines we draw between versions are somewhat less bright than we’d like. The early versions bleed into one another in ways that we are still figuring out.

I have not really edited this post to stay current with my level of scholarship and I’m not going to. It’s just not that important to me; though I am grateful to those students who are doing the work to keep everything in the light for us.

3. Gently and respectfully, I stand by belief that the differences pale before the similarities. I am not denying the differences – nor denying that some of them feel significant and can be quite helpful. I am just saying that I don’t think anybody is being deprived by choosing a later version over an earlier one.

4. Your sense of tone – one being warmer than another – is absolutely right. And absolutely personal! That is what I mean when I say people should just go with what works and with how they feel guided. I am in a minority it seems because I actually think Wapnick’s edits are brilliant and cohesive, but who cares? It’s just an opinion. You know what I mean?

Thank you so much for your attention here – your long and thoughtful and erudite comments are a real blessing on this blog an I am thankful for that. I would also like to ask you a favor: though I will prefer to do so outside the comment stream. If you see this and are amenable to an email exchange, would you drop me a line via the contact page? Or if you’ve got my email through earlier exchanges, use that.

Hi Sean,
As you can see from the website address, this is personal to me.

At the beginning of my awakening I was “…compelled” to make ACIM free, online. My first three attempts/websites were taken down, by injunction from FIP. The site which you link to in this post is the final public domain version. It is still a work in progress.

Just so you know, I have been through a side by side comparison of all the versions and can tell you that there was 67 typed pages from the urtext not in the FIP version. Yes, some of it was so personal it didn´t transfer but that would only be one or two pages worth, in my opinion.

If you do a comparison with your blue book, you will notice a sudden shift in the paragragh stucture of the lesson. Which places “There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach…¨ in the middle of a paragragh instead of at the beginning, where it belongs. Then as you read on, the paragraghs line up again. This is ego at it´s best. God bless Ken.

Anyway, I just thought you and your readers might find that interesting.

I am most familiar with the urtext manuscripts that are edited (with added appendices) by Doug Thompson. I read them quite closely at one point, and tracked – probably less intensely than you have done – their similiarities/differences with subsequent editions. I was pretty into this whole what was edited, what shouldn’t have been, which edition is best and so forth. It’s true that I have gravitated away from it over the years. It feels right and natural to do that. I tend not to see the differences between textual editions as being significant in the big picture, but I understand that other people disagree, and I respect that. I think a good case can be made on both sides.

Mostly I’m grateful that people can do their own research into the subject and make an informed choice about what’s most helpful to them.

Notably ACIM wanted give it to us as Jesus Christ is ideal. and fall into no controversy is evident that lack of LOVE so is fear and attack. More thinking about the privacy of the scribes is contrary to what the course postulates: THERE ARE NOT PRIVATE THOUGHTS. As we are one Being. are falling back on the false perception